The inept drummer being me! Outside of banging on a bodhran (yes, a moron with a bodhran), I have no skill with drums and certainly couldn't play a full set. And I don't want to sequence them. However...does anyone see anything wrong with layering in one (or maybe two) drum at a time? That I could handle! Pan them afterwards to approximate the position in a drum set?

Any ideas on the best approach for something like this? One mike, two mikes? Mix 'em all down to stereo and apply a reverb? Hire a drummer?!

that sounds like a tricky proposition, although I can't see anything wrong with it. I bet you'll need two or three spins on each skin to get it to sound unified.

Well, you could try that but it probably won't end up sounding natural. That being said, more than one album has been recorded with the cymbal work being done afterwards. I think groove matters more than handicapping a drummer for some engineer to acheive a marginally better (better being subjective here of course) sound. Meanwhile, you just took a guy's hi hat and cymbal swing away.

Give it a shot, let us know how it works out!

What matters is the end result. Personally I would hire a drummer but hey...I am one!

War

Ah well, I should have mentioned that I've used this approach for sequencing drums on occasion. That worked okay though I wasn't doing anything very challenging and felt natural enough since I'm used to banging on hand drums and such.

Wondered if anyone had any thoughts on the recording process. My natural inclination is to keep it simple -- one drum, one mike.

I've done it on lots of songs and it usually worked pretty dang well.

Spattered,

I haven't done that with real drums, but I have with a drum machine. Never did like programming it so I just played one drum at a time.

For simple. straight ahead stuff it works fairly well.

I don't know if I'd use for anything commercial, but I've never done anything of that quality!

Joel

ive done this as well... as a choice no less! (me=drummer) many times.
i wanted to avoid the whole "trap set" trap. (sorry, had to say trap)

what has worked well for me was dividing the drum parts in two. one take i deal with the foundation roles.. the kick snare toms sort of stuff. sett up a whole buncha drums to hit. all on stands. totally changes the way you play... sounds more "orchestral" the floor tom and the kick... both hit with sticks- you end up playing them like tympanis. sounds cool.

then i will set up a hat.. a lead pipe, some crashes rides... triangle.. all sorts of little things to cover the 8th notes and the accents. do a run on those.

mix them together... cool sounding. i have only done it locked to a metronome-- it might be hard without it. you could use a high hat guide track...

but you'll probably want to "lock" to something.

anyway, its fun...

ohhh... one more thing i did once... got a buncha people to stomp to the beat, march, record that locked to metronome... and lay that on top. sounds cool.


non kit drum percussion is the wave of the future.